Form builder

The builder is where you add and arrange a form's fields. Open it with Open builder in a form's row menu in All Forms or at the top of its settings. A form you create with New form opens there straight away.

The canvas in the middle shows the form's fields in order. On a wide screen, a sidebar on the right holds Add fields, Fields, Pages, Branches, Auto-triage & quiz, Design, Schedule & limits, Submission and History. On a narrow screen the sidebar is hidden, and you add fields with the buttons under the canvas.

The bar along the top shows the form's name, whether your changes are saved and any problems to check. It also has undo and redo, the people editing with you, a button to copy the public link, Preview and Publish (or Live once the form is published). The arrow at the left goes back to All Forms.

To add a field, click a field type under Add fields in the sidebar. The new field goes after the field you have selected, or at the end. You can also drag a field type onto the canvas and drop it where you want it. Type in the search box to find a type, and press Enter to add the first match.

Under the canvas, Add field opens the same list, Calculated adds a calculated field and Add page adds a page break. An empty form also offers one-click starters: Short text, Email, Single choice, Long text, Date and Star rating. The Field types guide covers every type.

• To move a field, hover over it and drag the handle at its left edge to a new spot.
• The copy icon on a field, or Duplicate in its ⋯ menu, adds a copy right after it.
• Exclude from form hides a field from respondents but keeps it in the builder. Excluded fields move to an Excluded list under Fields in the sidebar, where the eye icon brings them back.
• Delete removes the field at once, and the message that follows has an Undo button.

The Fields section lists every field. Click one to jump to it on the canvas.

Click a field on the canvas to open its settings, and the arrow at its right to close them. Type in the name at the top of the card to rename the field. The name identifies the field in the builder, in responses and in merge tags.

The Question tab holds what respondents see:

• Field type: switch the field to another type.
• Question: the wording respondents see. Until you change it, it follows the field's name.
• Placeholder (for text, email, phone, website, number, currency and dropdown fields), Help text under the question, and an Info tooltip behind an (i) icon.
• Required: respondents can't continue without an answer. Read-only shows the default or prefilled value without letting respondents change it.
• The type's own settings, such as a choice field's options, covered in Field types.

The Validation tab sets extra rules: Minimum and Maximum for numbers and currency; Min length, Max length, a Pattern (regex) and its Error message for text, email, website and phone fields; and Min selections and Max selections for multiple choice. The Logic tab shows the field only when conditions match, covered in Logic and scoring.

The Advanced tab of a field's settings holds:

• Width: Full (the default), Half or Third, so fields sit side by side. On a phone, fields stack.
• Default value: the answer a field starts with.
• Prefill key: a name that fills the field from the form's link. With the key email, a link ending in ?email=ana@example.com fills in that address.
• Browser autofill (short text fields): which saved detail browsers and password managers offer, such as First name, Company or Postal code. Auto guesses from the field's name, and Off turns it off.
• Sensitive data (ePHI): encrypts the answer when it's stored and masks it in the Response Inbox, exports and notifications. A teammate has to reveal it on purpose, and every reveal is logged.

The bottom of the tab shows the field's merge tag, like {Full name}, and its ID.

A page break splits a form into steps that respondents move through one page at a time. To add one, choose Add page under the canvas or under Pages in the sidebar. The break goes after the selected field, and every field after it, up to the next break, is on the new page.

• Type a title on the page break's divider to name the page.
• Drag the break's handle to move where the page starts.
• The trash icon on the divider removes the break. Its fields stay and join the page before.
• The arrow on the divider opens Show this page only when, which skips the whole page when its conditions don't match. See Logic and scoring.

The Pages section lists each page with its number of fields. Click a page to jump to its break. A form with more than one page shows a progress bar to respondents, unless you turn off Progress bar under Design.

To try a form the way respondents will, choose Preview in the builder's top bar. The preview runs the form's logic, pages and validation and ends on the thank-you screen respondents would see, with the score and outcome when the form uses them. Nothing you enter is saved.

Switch between Desktop width and Mobile width with the icons at the top right. Restart clears your answers, and Exit preview or Edit returns to the canvas.

The preview works on drafts too. A form's public link only opens once the form is published.

The builder saves on its own, a second after you stop making changes, so there is no Save button. The icon next to the form's name shows where things stand: hover over it to see whether all changes are saved, a save is in progress or a save failed and is being retried. After a failed save, the builder tries again every 5 seconds. If you try to leave while a change is still unsaved, your browser asks you to confirm.

Undo and redo cover every change in the builder: fields, pages, branches, design and settings. Use the arrows in the top bar, or press Ctrl Z to undo and Ctrl Shift Z or Ctrl Y to redo (⌘ Z, ⌘ Shift Z or ⌘ Y on Mac). Typing in one box counts as a single step, and the builder keeps the last 100 steps. Undo history starts fresh each time you open the builder.

The Design, Schedule & limits and Submission sections in the sidebar change the same settings as the form's settings, and here they save on their own. See Form settings.

When something in a form would trip up respondents, the builder's top bar shows a badge such as 3 to check. Hover over it to read the list, and click it to jump to the first field involved. It flags, for example:

• A form with no questions.
• A choice field with no choices, a matrix with no rows or a repeating group with no sub-fields.
• A calculated field with no formula, a formula error or a reference to a field that doesn't exist.
• A product with no price, or a picture choice without a picture.
• An image or video block with no usable link, which is hidden from respondents.
• A condition on a deleted field, or with no field selected.
• A redirect or ending link that doesn't start with http:// or https://, which is ignored.
• A branch with no conditions, which never matches.

The same list appears when you publish. The Publishing and sharing guide covers publishing.

A version is a snapshot of a form's fields, logic and settings that you can go back to. To save one, open History in the builder's sidebar and choose Save version, then add optional Change notes. Versions are numbered v1.0, v2.0 and so on, and the builder doesn't save them for you.

History lists versions newest first, with who saved each one and when. The newest is marked Latest. To go back to a version:

1. Choose Preview & restore on the version.
2. Read what would change: fields that come back, fields that are removed or changed, settings that change and whether the order changes.
3. Choose Restore version.

Before restoring, Forms saves the current form as a new version named after the restore, so you can always undo it. Restoring changes the form's fields and settings, not its name.

Form Builder → Version History in the Forms sidebar lists every form in the project, with when each was last edited. Open builder opens a form in the builder, where History holds its versions.

When teammates have the same form open in the builder, their avatars appear in the top bar. Hover over them to see who is also editing.

Changes aren't merged. When a teammate's change saves, Forms shows "Updated by" and their name, with a Reload button that loads their version of the form. If you have unsaved edits of your own, reloading replaces them. Whichever change saves last is what the form keeps, so agree on who edits what.

Collaboration → Live Presence in the Forms sidebar lists the project's forms and shows which ones are shared with collaborators. Open builder opens a form in the builder.

The builder shows Form not found when its link doesn't match a form, for example because the form was deleted or the address is wrong.

1. Choose Back to forms.
2. Find the form in All Forms, and open it from its row menu with Open builder.

Create this form makes a new, empty form at that address instead. It needs a project open and a role that can edit forms.